For decades, electric hair dryers have been used to dry and style hair. There have been modest improvements over time, including variations of the conventional hair dryer that have included caps, helmets, hoods or bonnets that can be worn on the head while drying the hair. For instance, early efforts are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,304,625 to Black & Decker, describing a hair dryer connected by a plastic hose to a flexible hair drying bonnet, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,358,383 to Black & Decker, describing a hair dryer bonnet made of sheets of vinyl plastic. These hoods are undesirable and require a substantial amount of time to thoroughly dry the hair.
Further, drying curly hair has proven to be particularly difficult, where the heat from the hair dryer disproportionately flattens the hair and can lead to hair damage over time. Attachments to hair dryers, such as diffusers, have helped address this issue. However, there are several drawbacks to this approach, including the substantial length of time required to dry hair when using a diffuser attachment. Another problem is that the resulting hair is frizzy and may be difficult to manage and style. Accordingly, there remains a need for a device that can efficiently dry hair, in particular curly hair, which also results in softer curls or waves.